Health-related Projects Research Articles

The Use of Social Media for Health Research Purposes: Scoping Review.

BackgroundAs social media are increasingly used worldwide, more and more scientists are relying on them for their health-related projects. However, social media features, methodologies, and ethical issues are unclear so far because, to our knowledge, there has been no overview of this relatively young field of research.ObjectiveThis scoping review aimed to provide an evidence map of the different uses of social media for health research purposes, their fields of application, and their analysis methods.MethodsWe followed the scoping review methodologies developed by Arksey and O’Malley and the Joanna Briggs Institute. After developing search strategies based on keywords (eg, social media, health research), comprehensive searches were conducted in the PubMed/MEDLINE and Web of Science databases. We limited the search strategies to documents written in English and published between January 1, 2005, and April 9, 2020. After removing duplicates, articles were screened at the title and abstract level and at the full text level by two independent reviewers. One reviewer extracted data, which were descriptively analyzed to map the available evidence.ResultsAfter screening 1237 titles and abstracts and 407 full texts, 268 unique papers were included, dating from 2009 to 2020 with an average annual growth rate of 32.71% for the 2009-2019 period. Studies mainly came from the Americas (173/268, 64.6%, including 151 from the United States). Articles used machine learning or data mining techniques (60/268) to analyze the data, discussed opportunities and limitations of the use of social media for research (59/268), assessed the feasibility of recruitment strategies (45/268), or discussed ethical issues (16/268). Communicable (eg, influenza, 40/268) and then chronic (eg, cancer, 24/268) diseases were the two main areas of interest.ConclusionsSince their early days, social media have been recognized as resources with high potential for health research purposes, yet the field is still suffering from strong heterogeneity in the methodologies used, which prevents the research from being compared and generalized. For the field to be fully recognized as a valid, complementary approach to more traditional health research study designs, there is now a need for more guidance by types of applications of social media for health research, both from a methodological and an ethical perspective.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)RR2-10.1136/bmjopen-2020-040671

The Interconnected Health Initiative: A Smithsonian Framework to Extend One Health Research and Education.

To better tackle diseases and sustain healthy ecosystems, One Health programs must efficiently bridge health in humans, domestic/livestock species, wild animals and plants, agriculture/aquaculture, and the environment. The Smithsonian Institution proposes to address this by considering ‘health' in a broad sense – the absence of undue pathogens and unnecessary stress for any organisms as well as access to good living conditions in functional environments. Considering the interconnectedness of all life forms, the Smithsonian plans to create a framework that will integrate cultural, social, and educational components into health research on humans, animals, plants, or ecosystems. The objectives of this perspective article are to (1) propose an innovative framework to support an interconnected/integrated approach to health and (2) provide examples fostering impactful collaborations on One Health research and education. Based on the core strengths of the Smithsonian (multidisciplinary research, outreach and education programs, libraries/archives, and collections) and central institutional support, this framework has the potential to extend existing health-related projects, address new needs and situations (e.g., response to pandemics), provide invaluable resources to inform policy and decision makers, and educate all audiences globally.

Pandemics, Climate Change and Growing Inequality:The Emerging Paradigm Shift in Helping Professions

The COVID-19 pandemic that has affected the world since December 2019 is the biggest challenge today, especially, in the areas of health and well-being. Many International bodies like the International Labour Organization, World Bank, and United Nations Development Programme have predicted a slowdown in growth of economies across countries, along with rise of unemployment, loss of income, increased problems of migrants, children and the elderly. The United Nations and United Nations Women have reported that lockdown, quarantine and job loss during this pandemic have led to an increase in gender inequality. This pandemic also exposes the health inequities and structural weakness of health systems of different countries. Along with these, various reports about climate change have also linked pandemics with zoonotic diseases. COVID-19 is considered one such zoonotic disease and more such diseases are predicted in the future. It has also been noticed that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding and funding aids from International bodies have drastically reduced due to the pandemic, as well as a constraint is found in direct aid and field-based activities. This will either slow down or bring to standstill development activities, social work and public health related projects that address inequality. Such scenarios call for a reorientation of helping professions, including Social Work and Public Health. Such a reorientation and paradigm shift will be necessary to address inequality and livelihood issues in the post COVID-19 era. This symposium is a follow-up of the International Virtual Symposium (IVS-I) on Pandemics, Climate Change and Growing Inequality: Emerging Paradigm Shift in Helping Professions held on 28.08.2020; the National Virtual Symposium II (NVS-II) on Informality, New Forms of Work, Labour Concerns of the Pandemic: Evolving Strategies for Helping Professions organized on 12.09.2020; and National Virtual Symposium III (NVS-III) on Society, Economy And Development During The COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons For Emerging Economies held on 20.10.2020 in which several eminent global speakers delivered their keynote address enriching hundreds of scholars, faculties and practitioners worldwide. The report contains keynote address of eminent academicians presented in seven academic sessions. They have shared their views on Pandemics, Climate Change and Growing Inequality - Emerging Paradigm Shift in Helping Professions. The Book project is a continuation of this symposium and it invites the intellectual community (both academic/ practitioners) to reflect upon the reality, consider impacts and come up with innovative solutions. This will eventually lead to further research collaborations and create joint research with trans or inter-disciplinary approaches.

Estimating Chinese foreign health aid: an analysis of AidData's Global Chinese Official Finance dataset

BackgroundChinese global health aid has expanded tremendously since the 2000s. Unlike many donors, China has no official aid reporting obligations, nor does it voluntarily disclose detailed aid information. Therefore, several third parties have attempted to estimate China's health aid footprint. However, current estimates use varied definitions of health aid, geographic regions, and time spans. These distinct methodological approaches make comparisons of Chinese aid to other aid donors difficult. Our study builds on previous tracking efforts and improves on them by creating a standardised estimate using commonly accepted definitions of aid and frameworks for categorising health projects. MethodsWe categorised AidData's Chinese Official Finance Dataset health-related projects according to health aid frameworks from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Only projects that fitted the definition of official development assistance were included. We analysed data by both total project count and financial value to assess priority health-aid focus areas for China. We also provide an updated estimate for projects with missing financial values in AidData's database by applying the median cost of similar projects to projects with missing financial values, allowing for comparison with other donors. FindingsBetween 2000 and 2014, China funded 620 health-related aid projects, which made up more than 20% of its total aid project portfolio. Most of these projects were located in Africa. According to the OECD framework, the priority focus areas of these 620 projects were: basic health care, such as medical teams, drugs, and medicine (n=244, 36%); malaria control (118, 19%); medical services, such as specialty equipment, infrastructure and services (108, 17%); and basic health infrastructure (78, 13%). According to the IHME framework, health-systems strengthening accounted for 70% (n=434) of total projects, primarily due to China's contributions to human resources for health, infrastructure, and equipment. The only other significant allocation under the IHME framework was malaria (n=118, 19%). When we estimate missing financial values, we noted that China was the fourth largest health aid donor to African countries from 2008–2014, after the USA, UK, and Canada. InterpretationThese findings enable a better understanding of Chinese health aid in the absence of transparent aid reporting. Such understanding could lead to better coordination, collaboration, and resource allocation for both fellow donors and recipient countries. FundingHuang Fellows Program, Duke University Science & Society (PK).

Rede Cegonha network and the methodological challenges of implementing networks in the SUS.

This paper addresses strategies employed in the implementation of the Rede Cegonha ("Stork Network") (RC), considering its contribution to change the delivery and birth care model in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS). It contextualizes RC as a project signed by SUS management interagency bodies and the importance of implementing the services' strategies. In this sense, it points out two essential axes supporting the RC, which are strategic to promote the intervention-analysis in obstetric-neonatal care, namely, institutional support (IS) and teamwork training. The IS enables the RC to become a collective construction assumed by teams in their action spaces and is pointed out as an innovative way of implementing health-related projects. The intervention-training methodology innovates training to intervene in work. These experiences are affirmed as potentiators of the RC in creating the conditions to change the technocratic rationale of management and care throughout labor and birth.

Evaluating Water- and Health-related Development Projects: A Cross-project and Micro-based Approach

We present a micro-based approach to evaluate the effect of water- and health-related development projects which complements established evaluation methods. We collect information from 1.8 million individuals from DHS clusters (Demographic and Health Surveys) in 38 developing economies between 1986 and 2017. We combine cluster information with over 14,000 sub-national projects from the World Bank. We then investigate the impact of the projects employing fixed effects estimation techniques. Our findings indicate that the time to gather water and child mortality tend to decrease when projects are realised. The quality of drinking water and sanitation facilities are also positively affected by projects. Our data allow us to account for cluster heterogeneity, which is an important extension to the cross-country literature. Various robustness checks support our findings.

Factors affecting successful scale-up of health-related pilot projects.

To identify the key factors that contribute to the successful scale-up of pilot projects, with emphasis on factors that are proven helpful in the successful scaling up of health interventions. Grey literature was searched at the library of the University of Kebangsaan, Malaysia, on database engines Google Scholar and Science Direct with specific key words to screen papers published from January 2001 to June 2016. They were reviewed to identify the key factors affecting scaling up of health-related pilot projects. Full-text articles were selected, and their reference lists were checked to look for relevant papers. They were short-listed and analysed using thematic approach. Of the 47 articles initially screened, 14(29.78%) were shortlisted. Thematic analysis of the selected articles suggested several key factors contributed to the successful scale-up of pilot projects. These factors included evidence-based and effective intervention, community readiness, government support, stakeholders' engagement, and monitoring and supervision. To maximise health coverage in developing and low middle-income countries, scaling up of health interventions on a large scale is essential to improve the health and wellbeing of people. The identified key factors should be considered while planning the scale-up of any health project.

What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors.

Citizen science is increasing in popularity but remains largely located in the disciplines of environmental and natural sciences. However, it has the potential to be a useful tool in other disciplines such as health. The aim of this study was to identify the factors for involvement (or non-involvement) in health-related citizen science projects using the Our Outdoors citizen science initiative as an example. Our Outdoors aims to understand how urban and rural shared outdoors spaces (e.g., parks, lakes, rivers, beaches) can affect human health and well-being (both positively and negatively). Understanding the motivations for involvement in such a program is likely to be useful for increasing participation rates and involvement. Qualitative research methods were used in this study in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants from two community projects in Scotland, United Kingdom. A thematic analysis revealed five key themes pertaining to the factors that motivated engagement with health-related citizen science projects such as Our Outdoors. These include enhancing social connectedness; personal learning development; making a difference in the community; gaining health and well-being benefits; and finally, demotivating factors relating to time constraints and the term “citizen science”. This study concludes that emphasising motivating factors in the promotional material for health-related citizen science projects may increase recruitment and the active involvement of participants. Similarly, reducing the presence of demotivating factors and considering the use of the term “citizen science” is likely to encourage participation

How Data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services Describe Ways Public Libraries Provide Health and Wellness Information Services.

ObjectiveThis article describes how funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) provided resources for state and public libraries to deliver health information to their patrons.MethodsThree IMLS publicly available data collections were used: State Library Administrative Agency Survey data; State Program Report system; and the Awarded Grants Search portal. Data about health related projects from these two administrative data sources for 36 competitive award projects since 2015 and 143 projects supported via the formula-funded Grants to States Program between 2015-2018 (inclusive) were included. Descriptive statistics about projects with a health and wellness focus were presented within the context of others supported by Grants to States.ResultsCompetitive projects supported public libraries’ health resources and built librarians’ skills to facilitate patron access to health information. The Grants to States program supported 143 projects associated with health undertaken by 29 states plus Puerto Rico between 2015 and 2018. The IMLS $14.4 million investment during this period leveraged an additional $5 million from state and local sources to support health information projects in public libraries. Finally, data from the State Library Administrative Agency Survey showed that in addition to projects that relied on IMLS Grants to States funds, 29 state libraries provided program assistance in health literacy to the public libraries in their jurisdictions in 2018.ConclusionsThe findings point to a need to determine whether there are ways to collect additional information via IMLS’s data systems to further support state and public libraries in meeting patron health information needs. The lessons learned in the analyses in this article offer useful food-for-thought about how IMLS might work with our data stakeholders to continue to modify each of these data sources to describe the role of libraries in an increasingly complex information landscape.

Perceived Challenges and Strategies towards the Attainments of Sustainable Development Goal Three (SDG 3): Evidence from Irewole and Isokan Local Government Areas of Osun State, Nigeria

The study examined the perceived challenges and possible strategies towards the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal three (SDG-3), evidenced from Irewole and Isokan Local Government Areas of Osun State, Nigeria. An exploratory research design was adopted for the study. Both qualitative and quantitative instruments were used. However, two-hundred and seventy (270) participants were sampled. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used to analyze quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The empirical outcomes indicated that the perceived challenges towards effective implementations and utilizations of core health and health-related projects include; inadequate provision of financial resources; weak personnel management capacity; inadequate involvement of members of the community during the planning stage of the projects; political instability; abandonment of the project; and inadequate utilization of modern technologies for effective management of the projects. In terms of possible strategies, the empirical outcomes revealed the need for bottom-up approach to developmental projects, regular training programs for community members, adequate monitoring and supervision of the projects during implementation, mobilization of financial resources, public campaigns and awareness, effective program evaluation, provision of modern technological equipment and mobilization of human resources by the host community. Recommendation comprised reactivation of abandoned projects, mobilization of physical and financial resources and regular public enlightenment campaigns program to mention a few were suggested.

Consulting or engaging? The role of stakeholders in health research. Aconference report by the organizers

Increasingly, researchers are required to engage stakeholders in health-related research projects. "Stakeholder" in this context are those people who may be directly or indirectly affected by the planned research or the research object. This could be, for example, patients, relatives, and health personnel, but also political decision-makers. Those conducting stakeholder engagement are faced with many open questions like what activities are meant by engagement, for what purpose researchers should engage stakeholders, who should be involved, or how best to design engagement activities.From 28 to 29March 2019 the interdisciplinary conference "Consulting or Engaging? The Role of Stakeholders in Health Research" took place at LMU Munich. The aim of the conference was to facilitate cross-disciplinary discourse on research engagement of various stakeholder groups. Different application contexts were examined, such as public health research, clinical research, health services research, and bioethical deliberation.This conference report structures and explains the main topics discussed during the conference from the perspective of the organizers. It thereby addresses the question of inclusivity and exclusivity of frequently used terms for stakeholder engagement, reflects on different strategies for justifying stakeholder engagement, and provides an overview of different approaches to stakeholder engagement as well as of methodological and practical challenges in implementing engagement activities.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Accountability Against Corruption: A South African Case Study

CITATION: Mantzaris, E. A. & Pillay, P. 2019. Monitoring, evaluation and accountability against corruption : a South African case study. Journal of Reviews on Global Economics, 8:521-531, doi:10.6000/1929-7092.2019.08.45.

P198 Development and Validation of a Readiness to Change Tool for College Students

Background Emerging adulthood is a developmental stage in which lifestyle behaviors are established that either promote or impede health. Interventions for behavior modification often incorporate the stages of change, which are a key construct described in the transtheoretical model (TTM). There is no current assessment tool that determines how college students rate their own readiness to change and that of their administrators and peers. Objective To develop and validate a tool for college students to assess readiness to change for health. Study Design, Settings, Participants A sample of college students (n = 7,419) recruited for a larger health-related project were surveyed on readiness to change. The sample included students from 60 universities across the United States. Measurable Outcome/Analysis Survey questions were developed by a panel of six researchers with expertise in behavior change in the college population. Five dietitians were interviewed for content validation and ten college students were interviewed for face validation. Exploratory factor analysis using maximum likelihood extraction with varimax rotation was performed on a random sample of 50% of the cases, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis on the remaining 50% of the cases. Results The expert panel initially created a 28-item tool. The tool was decreased to 10 items after the interviews with dietitians. Minor changes were made to the survey following face validation. Factor analysis confirmed three factors apparent in the tool: campus community readiness (3 items, α = 0.722), campus readiness for wellness programming (3 items, α = 0.808) and student readiness (4 items, α = 0.826). Cronbach's alpha for the entire 10-item tool was 0.874. Conclusion This validated 10-item questionnaire may be used in future studies to assess college students’ readiness to change as well as for the development of campus-wide health interventions and wellness programming. Funding None.

The EU-Health Innovation Marketplace: facilitating valorization of project results

A recent evaluation of FP7 and early concluded Health-related Horizon2020 projects, showed that an estimated 80% of their results lack valorization & exploitation towards the market. One of the factors influencing the match (and therefore the valorization) between technology push of research results and market pull is human interaction on a personal level. To facilitate the productive collaboration among relevant actors, support innovation and stimulate valorization of funded Health project results, the EU-Health Innovation Marketplace (in short: UTILE) is being developing. The online community will be the place where Innovation Providers (like research centers, universities and research groups), business investors and Innovation Developers (like big pharma and biotech companies) can meet each other for exploiting win-win collaborations. UTILE project makes use of an online platform (the Innovation Marketplace) and offline networking means (for example brokerage events and within personal networks) to reach this goal. Through UTILE, researchers, innovators and EU-project beneficiaries will gain visibility towards peers; get in contact with investors and industry experts; access to a set of online and offline services, such as workshops and round tables, courses and trainings; ask for expertise; broaden their network and perform their next research or development steps.

Linking Podcasts With Social Media to Promote Community Health and Medical Research: Feasibility Study.

BackgroundLinking podcasts with social media is a strategy to promote and disseminate health and health research information to the community without constraints of time, weather, and geography.ObjectiveTo describe the process of creating a podcast library and promoting it on social media as a strategy for disseminating health and biomedical research topics to the community.MethodsWe used a community and patient engagement in research approach for developing a process to use podcasts for dissemination of health and health research information. We have reported the aspects of audience reach, impressions, and engagement on social media through the number of downloads, shares, and reactions posted on SoundCloud, Twitter, and Facebook, among others.ResultsIn collaboration with our local community partner, we produced 45 podcasts focused on topics selected from a community health needs assessment with input from health researchers. Episodes lasted about 22 minutes and presented health-related projects, community events, and community resources, with most featured guests from Olmsted County (24/45, 53%). Health research was the most frequently discussed topic. Between February 2016 and June 2017, episodes were played 1843 times on SoundCloud and reached 1702 users on our Facebook page.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated the process and feasibility of creating a content library of podcasts for disseminating health- and research-related information. Further examination is needed to determine the best methods to develop a sustainable social media plan that will further enhance dissemination (audience reach), knowledge acquisition, and communication of health topics.

Managing sport-for-development and healthy lifestyles: The sport-for-health model

With increased globalization and modernization of people’s lives, lifestyle behavior has changed substantially in many countries around the world. This change has brought two key behavior modifications: a reduction in physical activity and an increase in unhealthy eating patterns. Consequently, non-communicable diseases have overtaken communicable diseases as a key health risk area. In response to this issue, healthy lifestyle initiatives and sport-for-development (SFD) programs are now implemented across the world, including projects in the heavily affected Pacific Islands region. In this paper, the authors critically reflect on their lived experiences and the underpinning management processes of the Wokabaot Jalens, a health-focused SFD initiative in Vanuatu. The authors propose the sport-for-health model as a flexible conceptual tool that establishes the nexus between sport management, health promotion, sociocultural development, policy, and sustainability. The authors provide practical and theoretical implications and suggest that the model can underpin and conceptually support other SFD initiatives—and specifically health-related development projects—in the Pacific region and beyond.

European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines: automatic drugs dispensing report

The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM) released automated dose dispensing (ADD) guidelines. Their content was agreed on during an open consultation involving stakeholders, which was held this...

Increasing Trend in China’s Social Development Aids to Africa During 2000-2012

There have been controversies about China’s engagement in development aids in Africa, being opportunism or altruism. We thus base our research on 1955 donation event observations during 2000 to 2012 from Aiddata China to Africa Aid Database, in order to find the likelihood of China’s social development assistance to African countries, including health-related projects. We apply a logistic regression model to examine the trends, and the results show that during the past decade China had been increasing the social development aids to African countries, especially for health-related sectors. Meanwhile, China’s aids did not show preference to African Portuguese-speaking countries during 2000 to 2012. Our findings help better understand China’s foreign aid strategies, and provide a quantitative perspective of evaluating the roles of “nontraditional donors.”

Crowding out of Government Health Spending: Evidence from Bangladesh

While public spending on health in developing countries has increasingly come from domestic sources, existing studies show that government spending has been crowded out by foreign aid in the health sector. However, current research has mostly focused on cross-country studies. Cross-country studies present results that cannot be generalized to an individual country. Some countries may not experience a displacement of government health spending when there is an inflow of aid, while others may respond to health assistance by reducing their own spending in health. It may be worthwhile to look at country-specific cases in order to investigate whether health assistance over time crowds out purely government expenditure in health. To that end, this paper studies the displacement effect of foreign aid in Bangladesh. We specifically assess if government health spending in Bangladesh has been crowded out by health aid channeled to the government during the period 1995-2008. We identify pure government health expenditure net of aid (GHES) and health aid disbursed to governments (DAHG) and evaluate if GHES is affected by changes in DAHG. We use data from National Health Accounts (NHA) of the World Health Organization (WHO) and from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). We utilize Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and the Three-Stage Least Squares method (3SLS) to measure the crowding-out effect of aid in Bangladesh. We further address the causal relationship between domestic health spending, health aid and gross domestic product in the framework of the simultaneous equations model. We find that a one percent increase in health aid displaces Bangladesh's government health spending by at least 0.15 percent and at most 0.30 percent according to our 3SLS estimates. Our OLS and GMM estimates suggest that that aid inflows into the public health sector causes government health spending to fall between 0.14 and 0.23 percent. The government appears to reduce its own spending in response to aid inflows in the public health sector. Past spending in the health sector does not determine current health spending – the government policy is that of maintaining a steady expenditure. Our findings suggest that health-related projects are highly substitutable against donor aid. It may be easier to cut spending in health and reallocate the money to other priority sectors. There is a possibility that such displacement along with volatility in donor funding may have negative effects on the allocation of resources. To reduce this crowding-out effect, there should be an alignment between donor aid policies and priority sectors that governments want to focus their spending on.

Non-communicable diseases prevention through community mobilization

An introduction : Non-communicable diseases (NCD) are a serious macro-economic burden for Belarus. About 90% of all deaths in the country are due to NCDs (63% – cardiovascular diseases). Behavior change is an important element of NCD prevention. Practice change implemented. In order to reduce the impact of NCDs on individuals and society BRC implemented the project “Community action for Health” supported by SRC. The project is aimed at behavior change of individual community members through introducing a change from “non-organized” members of community to community volunteer groups (CVGs) with extension of the “effect” to wider circle of people in community. Aim and theory of change. The aim is engaging people and communities in and empowering for healthier life style through setting up CVGs, united around key community needs/priorities in the area of healthy life style. Key stages: - Training for volunteers on NCD prevention, - public events for public awareness and engaging more community members, - thematic mini-initiatives, - peer-support in individual behavior change. Target population: - 14 CVGs with more than 250 members aged between 9 and 85 years in 12 pilot districts (with population about 185 thousand of people). - Around 10,000 people involved in CVGs activities. - More than 500 volunteers trained in NCD prevention. Main stakeholders – BRC, health, educational, social, sport and culture institutions, local authorities. Innovation/ impact and outcomes : Important element of community mobilization is developing and implementing mini-initiatives that address the health related priorities identified by the communities. It doesn’t only establish supporting environment for behavior change, but shapes community and works as an advocacy tool. There is also a “spill-over” effect to other communities/districts of the pilot regions. Within peer-support process, trained volunteers help community members (maximum 3 persons per one volunteer) setting a goal, personal motivation, make up a clear plan, arrange supporting environment. Monitoring of changing process is carried out by collecting personal stories. At the end of the project it is planned to get more quantitative results of behavior change based on the quasi-experimental method (comparing knowledge, skills and practices in the pilot communities with those communities that were not covered by any health related projects). Sustainability of CVGs is ensured by signed partnership agreements with the local state organizations providing organizational and financial support to the CVGs. Transferability : BRC has 100% coverage of the country with regional and district branches: CVGs experience is transferred within the organization, as well as by partner state organisations and local authorities. Conclusions : Community mobilization via CVGs work is new, but effective mechanism of NCDs prevention in Belarus. Discussions : How feasible it is to build-in community-led NCD prevention into the state primary prevention system including Lessons learned : - There are two “types” of CVGs: uniting active members of community in their individual capacity and built around representatives of the local institutions interested in addressing NCDs. - Individual peer-support is effective method of behavior change: needs to be better described and further developed.